Level 4 — Performance and management
Deciding with your figures, leading your teams
Feed conversion ratio, target weight by age and laying curve, margin per flock, rotating several houses, managing employees, decisions based on figures, selling better, plan Bs for breakdowns.
- 1The feed conversion ratio: the figure that tells you whether feed is turning into meatTwo poultry farmers sell 2 kg chickens. The first spent 3.2 kg of feed per chicken, the second 4 kg. In the end, one made money and the other worked for the feed seller. The difference lies in a single figure: the feed conversion ratio. It takes one minute to calculate and steers the whole flock.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 2Target weight by age and laying curve: steering with objectivesAt level 2, you learnt to weigh and to read a curve. Here, you set objectives: a target weight by age for broilers, an expected laying curve for layers, and you compare every week. A poultry farm without an objective cannot know whether it is succeeding.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 3Margin per flock: from the one-page balance sheet to the decisionAt level 1, you calculated a flock before ordering it. At level 2, you kept the record sheet and drew up a one-page balance sheet. Here, the two come together: the calculation after the sale, with the real figures, flock after flock. It is the only way to know whether the farm is making money, and where it is losing it.10 min read · 5-question quiz
- 4Several poultry houses: rotation, annual calendar and ordersWith one poultry house, you rear one flock at a time. With three, you can deliver chickens every three weeks, smooth out your cash flow and aim for the festive seasons. Provided you organise the rotation around the sanitary break, never mix ages, and order the chicks at the right time.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 5Managing your employees: instructions, checks, motivationMost poultry entrepreneurs do not live on the farm. Their chickens are in the hands of a technician and one or two workers. The farm is then worth what this team is worth: its instructions, its checks, its motivation. This lesson gives a simple method for managing from a distance without watching all the time.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 6Deciding with your figures: six indicators and one ritualYou now have figures everywhere: record sheet, weighings, FCR, margin. The risk is drowning in them. An entrepreneur needs only six indicators, read once a week, and a few decision rules written in advance: when to correct, when to stop, when to grow.8 min read · 5-question quiz
- 7Selling better: per head or per kilo, to whom, whenA good poultry farmer can lose at the sale what he gained in the house. Selling better does not mean selling dearer at all costs: it means choosing your buyers, your method of sale, your moment, and keeping your commitments so that they come back. The market rewards regularity.9 min read · 5-question quiz
- 8Breakdowns: electricity, water, feed, transport — a plan B for each oneA farm does not die of a breakdown: it dies of the absence of a plan. The power goes off, the pump gives out, the feed lorry does not arrive, the driver is ill, a fire starts from the charcoal. Every breakdown has a prepared answer, written down, known to the team. This lesson goes through them.8 min read · 5-question quiz